


Deep Roots

by wanderingempress



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Other, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:39:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingempress/pseuds/wanderingempress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beginning the new year at Silas, LaFontaine and Perry are joined by an unexpected roommate. (Don't worry, it's not a horribly out-of-place OC.) Safe For Cast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Roots

**Author's Note:**

> Truly, I have no idea where this came from--it just kinda showed up and jumped the queue of other fic ideas. I fully intend for it to be a random little one-shot, but seeing as two of those have grown larger plots now, I can't say either way. In the meantime, enjoy!

When she first saw it, as was her way, Perry expected nothing out of the ordinary. It looked normal enough. Coming home from a dons’ meeting just after the term started, she found LaFontaine sitting at their desk watching it curiously, a fetching red bow tied around its pot and its long, slender leaves quivering in a breeze she couldn’t feel. LaFontaine had called it something she could neither pronounce then nor remember now and told her that it “reacted badly to having samples taken” and “needed a good home.” And she couldn’t say no to that. At least this time it wasn’t a pet, so there was no rule against keeping it, and LaFontaine hadn’t mentioned that it ate anything hazardous or alive, so it could stay. When she told them this, they grinned, hugging her, saying, “I knew you’d agree.”

The plant seemed to fit in well, for the most part. Perry found herself glancing over at it from time to time, until something struck her one day, and she withdrew a thick scarf from a drawer and wrapped it loosely around the leaves. That evening, she saw that the quivering had stopped, and she could have sworn that the scarf had been repositioned.

LaFontaine found this hilarious when they got home and saw what she’d done. “What, does it have a name now, too?” they asked her.

“Of course she does,” Perry said. “I’ve been calling her Flora.” At her friend’s look, she went on, “I know that doesn’t make sense, because plants have both male and—”

“No,” they said, still amused. “The sex organs don’t matter. Just…yeah, that’s fine. It’s a perfect name for a plant, really.”

Perry wondered vaguely if she was missing part of the joke, but she supposed that it would take a lot of explaining, so she just smiled at them and began writing in “Feed Flora” on the chore chart.

Not that living with their new roommate was always so harmonious. Flora was afraid of the vacuum cleaner and would attempt to bury her leaves in the soil whenever it came out, which was often. She always got twitchy when LaFontaine came back from the lab smelling of god knows what chemicals. When she was in front of the window, the window would invariably end up open, even if it had been locked and double-checked beforehand. And, perhaps most unfortunately, Flora had been indefinitely relocated to the headboard of _LaFontaine’s_ bed after she developed the apparently incorrigible habit of gently stroking Perry’s face in the middle of the night no matter how many times Perry talked to her about personal boundaries. Perry found this rather frustrating. She thought that anything aware enough to touch should also be aware enough to be taught when not to.

 

Tonight, Perry was in the shaky, fragile, ridiculous post-breakdown mood she almost never experienced. On the occasions that she did, LaFontaine usually found it at once funny and somewhat disconcerting, but…LaFontaine wasn’t here. Undeterred by their recent disappearance, they had insisted on returning to the library with Laura and Carmilla to do yet more research. This was a terrible idea. Perry wished they’d stayed, but she’d been unable to talk them out of it.

As she lay on their bed with a mug of cocoa, trying to read something for class, she asked, “Will she come home tonight?” As soon as she’d said it, she smiled to herself. Who was going to answer? There was no one else in the room.

Something soft and surprisingly warm dropped onto her shoulder from above. Reaching up and tugging on it, she recognized it as LaFontaine’s green-and-silver scarf, smelling slightly of earth.

She wrapped it around her neck with a word of thanks to Flora—it was only polite. She was still worried—how could she not be?—but now cozier and somehow less alone. She took a long sip of cocoa, picked up her book again, and settled in to wait, however long it took.


End file.
